American horse racing has recently been rocked by allegations of widespread doping and cheating. The New York Times revealed the sport's deadly toll on jockeys and thoroughbreds. A horse in contention for the Triple Crown was scratched after scrutiny of its trainer's controversial record. And U.S. Senator Tom Udall called for reform citing "an alarming level of corruption and exploitation."

Now a two-month investigation by New Times shows how cheating occurs at Calder Race Course -- Florida's biggest, most lucrative track -- including one trainer who is still racing and winning despite 41 horse doping violations.

Kirk Ziadie, a trainer with one of the state's best win percentages, has guided his horses to 553 victories worth nearly $11 million in purses in his 10-year career. But those same horses have failed state-administered drug tests 41 times. All but three of those violations came within a five-year period from 2004-9.

Among the drugs his horses tested positive for were powerful painkillers (which can be used to mask dangerous injuries), tranquilizers (which, in low doses, act as stimulants), and steroids.

Despite his repeated violations, Ziadie was only fined a total of $13,100 -- less than the prize for a single race -- and was never asked by state officials to return any of his winnings.

When Florida's Division of Pari-Mutuel Wagering finally tried to suspend Ziadie for two months, he appealed the case for another two years.

Ziadie ultimately banned from Calder Race Course, but only because one of his own employees provided racetrack officials with syringes full of mysterious chemicals.

Repeated drug violations like Ziadie's are only possible because Florida politicians wrote weaker testing methods into state law.

Calder officials deny that there is a widespread problem, telling New Times that the track is "an industry leader for racetrack safety."

Ziadie, meanwhile, gave New Times conflicting explanations for his bad record. At first he denied it, then he said it was just "carelessness," before finally blaming "haters" for attacking his success.

"Look at Michael Jordan or Kobe Bryant," he said. "Any time you do anything in life and you are successful, they are always going to try to bring you down."

Our investigation also delves into a $5 million fraud at Calder as well as allegations of drug use and race fixing at the track. Read it here.

Michael E. Miller was the senior writer at the Miami New Times. For five years, he covered everything Florida could throw at him. He got an innocent man off of murder charges and got a bad cop suspended from duty. He flew in homemade airplanes, dove into the Atlantic in a tiny submarine, and skateboarded a marathon. He smoked stogies, interviewed strippers, and narrowly survived a cavity search in a Panamanian jungle prison — all in the name of journalism. His only regret is that one time he outed Colombian drug lords for sneaking strippers into Miami jail. For that, he says lo siento. He was only doing his job. Miller’s work for New Times won many national awards including back-to-back Sigma Delta Chi medallions. He has also written for the New York Times, Newsweek, The Atlantic, Chicago Magazine, Village Voice, the New York Daily News, and VQR. He now covers foreign affairs for the Washington Post.